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Noonian Soong
Noonien Soong (2279 - 2367) was a male human in the 24th century. He was a descendant of infamous 22nd century geneticist Arik Soong, and himself one of Federation's greatest cyberneticists. ( }}; ) He was of Oriental heritage, and spoke Mandarin Chinese. Although his field of expertise was cybernetics and computer technology, he was also skilled in mathematics and physics and was a trivia buff on Terran science fiction. ( ) Biography His early career as a cyberneticist Soong was a devoted follower of the late Richard Daystrom, and worked closely with Daystrom's son at Daystrom Data Concepts until he receieved a grant to study on Cygnus. While there, he set his sights on the dream of building an "independent thinking machine," though he could not afford to do this, so he continued working at the Cygnian Institute For Advanced Cybernetics. Soong was once a highly regarded scientist, but was disgraced after his failure to produce a promised, working positronic brain. The Institute was so ashamed of him that they dropped him from the faculty by "promoting" him to Professor Emeritus and withdrew all funding from his projects. ( ) In essence, this meant forced retirement. He migrates to Omicron Theta Rather than accept such forced retirement, however, the angered Soong gathered a band of similarly displeased scientists and decided to start a science colony of their own on Omicron Theta, Science Colony 4457-Delta. Soong disappeared from public sight then, and traveled under an assumed name to the colony world where he continued his research. ( ; ) Married man While at the colony, Soong met a young woman named Juliana O'Donnell, and the two soon fell in love with each other. Her mother disapproved of the relationship, but in 2328, Juliana and Soong left the colony for several days in order to get married on Mavala IV. Their witnesses included a Klingon and a Corvallen trader. Years later, Data was unable to find the marriage certificate as the Mavalan government had been overthrown, but was able to verify Juliana's claim that she had been married to Soong by examining passenger ship manifests from this time period. ( }}) Success at last With the assistance of his wife Juliana, Soong finally created a working positronic brain in a humanoid, android body. Soong and Juliana created at least five early androids, but their positronic matrices were unstable and collapsed in the weeks following their activation. The androids B-4 and Lore were considered seriously flawed and were also deactivated. Finally, Soong achieved success with the creation of Data, with which he earned the colonists' respect. With this eventual success, he no longer had the stigma of being nicknamed "Often-Wrong Soong." But that drastically turned to fear, in a Frankenstein-esque manner, when his reputation as a mad scientist (who indeed kept his promise to succeed in building a brain) was fueled by Lore's instabilities. ( }}; ) Hidden life Soong was presumed to have been killed in 2336, when the colony on Omicron Theta was destroyed by the Crystalline Entity. Instead, Soong and Juliana managed to escape to planet Terlina III. Tragically, Juliana was fatally injured during the attack, lingering in a coma after leaving Omicron Theta. To save her in some form, Soong built an advanced android body and had his wife's memories and personality transferred into its positronic brain. ( }}) The Juliana replica later divorced and left Soong, only a year before he perfected the emotion chip. ( }}; ) His later years; Lore murders him Upon perfecting this emotion chip, Soong activated a homing device which compelled Data to hijack the to Terlina III. Data was unaware of not only Soong's hiding but also his scrutiny of him-which the Dr. called him a "celebrity" in the field of cybernetics. However, unbeknownst to Soong, the same signal summoned the re-activated Lore, who posed as Data, in order to steal the new emotion chip. Soon after this incident, Lore murdered his "father," (much as the Frankenstein "monster" had ended up destroying his own creator), and Dr. Noonien Soong died. ( ) Alternate Universes In one alternate reality, Soong was successful in developing the positronic brain and his androids (which became widespread across the Federation) were not considered sentient beings due to their incapability to reproduce. This led both to the machine race suffering from diminished rights and Doctor Soong, along with wife Julia, campaigning for many years in order for his "children" to gain equal rights as other sentient beings. They would die in a shuttlecraft accident before they could see their children gain equality in the Federation. ( ) Legacy A group within the Daystrom Institute known as the Soong Foundation was named in his honor and sought to further develop artificial life and highly advanced technology for public use. They were also noted in campaigning for the rights of aritifical lifeforms. They would eventually restore Data's mind in B4's body, and would attempt to duplicate the Doctor's Mobile emitter. {Star Trek Online} Notes The FASA Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual mistakenly spells his name "Noonian". As it was written after the first season of TNG, it does not take into account information given in later episodes, including the revelation that he was, in fact, alive. His date of birth is derived from that source listing his age at death as "57", and says that he died when the Crystalline entity attacked in 2336. This changes the original year of 2338 laid by . In (set in 2364), Data claimed his discovery amongst the Omicron Theta ruins was "26 years ago." The video game The Transinium Challenge gives his name as Nguyen Soong. External link * Category:Humans Category:Scientists category:2367 deaths